If something is illegal to own, then there should be no difficulties charging the owner with a crime.

> I imagine without CF law enforcement would be forced to charge you with a crime to remove illegal property from you.

Exactly.

> I'm not sure about requiring a 16 year old to be charged with a crime for a police officer to take him beer away

Just like an officer can choose not to write up a ticket, they can tell a first-time offender "Throw away the beer right now and I'll let your parents deal with this; otherwise I'll have to charge you." That doesn't require civil forfeiture.

Do we want the law to be this inflexible? It sounds good initially, but I would rather the starving man have the bread he stole gently taken by the police and returned to the owner, and sent on his way (hopefully with some help), than to be arrested. Without civil forfeiture, this turn of events would require the police to either arrest the starving man, or break the law themselves to take the bread. CF is a way for the police to use their discretion to right situations, and to prevent additional harm to victims (such as preventing property from being destroyed, used or spent after the criminal is apprehended but before conviction).

What about the case of stolen property, and the misuse of hiding of it prior to conviction but after arrest? It does the victim little good if the property stolen is disposed of or hidden after arrest.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for massive reform for the law in these cases, I just think there are cases where it's useful, and careful consideration should be given as to whether we need to keep some portion of it intact, or remove it altogether, and the consequences of that choice.

Edit: Okay, ignore the stolen bread and kid with beer examples. They aren't well thought out, and are distracting from the other examples and and points, which I think deserve attention. I'm only leaving it here because I'm loathe to remove something people are responding to, even if it reflects poorly on me. :/

Or tell him he'd be arrested if he didn't hand over the bread...

Owning cash and fancy cars aren't illegal. These laws were suppose to make it easier to stop drug dealers where large amounts of cash were common place.

CF isn't generally used to take illegal goods, but to take otherwise legal goods. For example in a drink driving stop, they may charge the car with a drink driving offence.

1: http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/forfeiture-is-rea...

There may be plenty of cases where it's obvious who owns what, but it would be illegal to rectify prior to judgement if the perpetrator continues to claim ownership. For example, a bike with a serial number and documentation. If the thief claims the bike was thrown away, and you claim it was locked up and there were no witnesses, then without CF you might have to wait for a judgement before the bike is removed from the perpetrator and given back to you. With Cf, the police might make a judgement that you deserve the bike until judgement. Of course even this situation is open to abuse and mistakes...

I see no problem with guns, illegal substances, and explosives being a separately-delineated legal category, allowing them to be seized while not allowing cars, computers and other private property to be seized.

> I'm not sure about requiring a 16 year old to be charged with a crime for a police officer to take him beer away, so I understand this argument to some degree. It's a case of police discretion being warped into something it wasn't intended to be.

I don't think that would be handled through civil forfeiture law, either. They'd just pour it out.

That would be a refinement to CF, where it only applies to specific items, not the complete abolishment of it. There is the problematic case of money, and being able to return it to the rightful owner.

> I don't think that would be handled through civil forfeiture law, either. They'd just pour it out.

It's a poor example. I'll freely admit that. The point was to show that any time the police take something from you without a conviction and without CF, it would be real theft, under the law, not theft in all but name, which we have now. In some cases that's good, and in some I think it's not.

Good, there should not be.

> It's a case of police discretion being warped into something it wasn't intended to be.

Actually it is not, this is exactly what was intended when they passed the laws, I do not know where you get the idea this was about "taking a beer from a 16 year old"

For reasons for civil forfeiture, this[1] might be an interesting read. You don't have to agree with everything in it (I don't), but I believe there are some good points.

Here's an excerpt: Forfeiture is also used to abate nuisances and to take the instrumentalities of crime out of circulation. For example, if drug dealers are using a "crack house" to sell drugs to children as they pass by on the way to school, the building is a danger to the health and safety of the neighborhood. Under the forfeiture laws, we can shut it down. If a boat or truck is being used to smuggle illegal aliens across the border, we can forfeit the vessel or vehicle to prevent its use time and again for the same purpose. The same is true for an airplane used to fly cocaine from Peru into Southern California, or a printing press used to mint phony $100 bills.

1: http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/forfeiture-is-rea...

Throw the baby out with the bathwater r.e. civil forfeiture.

Civil forfeiture victimizes far more people than it helps protect people and society at large from bad actors using ill-gotten gains.

In fact, I'd say that the bad actors using the ill-gotten gains are overwhelmingly LE itself.

That's from an excerpt from a document I referenced. I already noted I didn't agree with everything in it, but there were more examples that just that in the excerpt.

> Civil forfeiture victimizes far more people than it helps protect people and society at large from bad actors using ill-gotten gains.

That would be an interesting point in the argument if true. Can you substantiate that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...

in 1986 reported civil forfeiture assets were $93.7M

in 2010 that figure was $2.5B

"Over 12 years, agencies have taken $20 billion in cash, securities, other property from drug bosses and Wall Street tycoons as well as "ordinary Americans who have not committed crimes."[31] One estimate was that in 85% of civil forfeiture instances, the property owner was never charged with a crime"

emphasis mine.

That needs more explanation, as large shipments of contraband that are seized would likely fall under that category. How do you charge the owner of a shipping container, or an abandoned boat, or illegal items left at the scene of a crime, when the owner is not present, or is in a location you have no jurisdiction, or you don't know who the owner is? You don't, you use Civil Forfeiture and seize the illegal goods without a criminal case, because that's the mechanism the law provides.

• Equitable sharing payments to states have nearly doubled from 2000 to 2008, from a little more than $200 million to $400 million.

Source: Williams, Marian R.; Holcomb, Jefferson H.; Kovandzic, Tomislav V; and Bullock, Scott, "Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture," The Institute for Justice (Arlington, VA: March 2010), p. 7.

http://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/other_pubs/assetforfeitu...

_______________________________

I'm not saying that there are not legitimate reasons to seize assets during criminal investigations, or in clear cases of contraband.

The problem is clearly that LE agencies are heavily incentivized to purse civil forfeiture as a means, in best case, to bolster budgets and support - in Generous Forfeiture states, public school budgets etc, and worst case, as slush funds. See Maricopa Country Sherriff's office. And Local PDs and Sheriff's depts nationwide.

The legality of these seizures needs a comprehensive overhaul. For every Madoff or HSBC or shipping container filled with coke or knockoff prada bags, there are a thousand people like the family in the OP.

Then you aren't disagreeing with the spirit of anything I've said.

> The legality of these seizures needs a comprehensive overhaul.

I've said as much multiple times in this thread, which I started by saying exactly this. I'm merely suggesting a rational look at the pros and cons and not to jump to the conclusion that there's no benefits of the law as it currently stands. It's obvious it needs overhaul though.

You've been talking out of the side of your mouth up and down this thread.

I can't. But I'm not saying it's not a problem, or that it hasn't been growing, just that I wasn't aware of the value of seizures that victimize people exceeding that of seizures that don't. I never refuted your claim, just pointed out a problem in the source of it that makes the specific number ambiguous for that claim. it's still entirely possible you are correct. It may even be likely.

> And I started by saying that in lieu of an overhaul, it would be better for society as a whole that civil forfeiture be outlawed entirely.

And you ended with "The legality of these seizures needs a comprehensive overhaul."

> You've been talking out of the side of your mouth up and down this thread.

I have tried to be very clear on my position, from the very first comment. CF are a major problem. They either need a major overhaul, or to be repealed. If repealed, we should look at any valid, useful uses and make sure to account for them. As such, careful consideration of CF is more useful than a simple stance of "CF is bad. Abolish it." Do you see any statements from me that do not follow this?

I've assumed you've been carrying on your side of the conversation in good faith. I would hope you could extend me the same courtesy.

I'll admit though that this is my issue, not yours (perceiving your intent negatively). This has been a good discussion, and I should abstain from inference and address you on content alone. For that, I apologize.

As far as how we should proceed institutionally with altering CF to be more in line with the spirit of the rule of law - I'm a cynic, and a pragmatist.

If we're extremely lucky, we'll get a federal redress of CF and how it can be applied.

Clamoring for it to be thrown out is an outright fantasy.

I don't think we'll get either.

It's an abomination.

http://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit/

Among DOJ civil forfeitures, 88 percent took place “administratively.” Administrative forfeitures happen automatically when a property owner fails to challenge a seizure in court for any reason, including the inability to afford a lawyer or a missed deadline to file a claim. The seized property is simply presumed “guilty” without a neutral arbiter such as a judge determining whether it should be permanently taken from its owner.

All contraband seized at port without a clear attributable own or person to prosecute falls under this. All drugs and drug money illegally transferring to and from the country that were intercepted without someone present to charge (or that they decide isn't the owner) fall under this.

To be fair, there may not be a lot of information around now to classify these things correctly, but that doesn't mean it's okay to take the entire amount and apply it towards one type of situation when it obviously doesn't apply.

Anytime the police take something from you it is theft... Period

With Civil Forfeiture it might be legal theft, but it is still theft.

>> For example, CF is used to return stolen good to the owner.

Citation.. I know of no instances where this is the case.

>> It's also used to keep criminals from using the fruits of their crime prior to conviction.

That is part of the problem with CF, I do not see that as a Good thing. You are denying a person a right to a fair criminal hearing if you take all of their assets before conviction.

>>For example, if drug dealers

I believe all drugs should be legal.... using Drug Dealers as and example of why we need CF is a fail for me

Is it? If you've stolen the goods form someone else, is it theft? Maybe it is theft, but we condone it because it rights the initial wrong.

> With Civil Forfeiture it might be legal theft, but it is still theft.

I've used almost those exact words elsewhere here at least once.

> Citation.. I know of no instances where this is the case.

The government also uses forfeiture to take the profit out of crime, and to return property to victims. No one has the right to retain the money gained from bribery, extortion, illegal gambling, or drug dealing. With the forfeiture laws, we can separate the criminal from his profits -- and any property traceable to it -- thus removing the incentive others may have to commit similar crimes tomorrow. And if the crime is one that has victims -- like carjacking or fraud -- we can use the forfeiture laws to recover the property and restore it to the owners far more effectively than the restitution statutes permit.[1] I've referenced it multiple times at this point.

> That is part of the problem with CF, I do not see that as a Good thing. You are denying a person a right to a fair criminal hearing if you take all of their assets before conviction.

That's one side of it, and it's definitely a problem in some instances. What about someone using the money they've stolen from you to defend themselves? What about people in organized crime using money from that enterprise to defend themselves?

> I believe all drugs should be legal.... using Drug Dealers as and example of why we need CF is a fail for me

Can you not come up with a single other group that you don't agree with? What about contract killers? Or embezzlers? Or con men? I expect if you disagree you should be able to come up with a general rebuttal to what is obviously meant as a general example.

Keep in mind my assertion here is not that civil forfeiture is good, but that there are some useful aspects, and before abolishing it outright, we owe it to ourselves to at least rationally examine the pros and cons, and see if we can mitigate the downsides or possible change the law instead of abolish it.

1: http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/forfeiture-is-rea...

no one is an embezzler, conman or contract killer until they have been proven to be beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of their peers, Until then they are innocent and any taking of their property it immoral theft.

Further During Criminal Proceeding a judge can order property secured, i.e if a person is charged with embezzlement the judge can order prior to conviction a bank account be frozen, this is FAR FAR FAR FAR different than CF.

Any Freezing of Assets or property at a minimum should be directly and irrevocably linked to a criminal prosecution of some kind

I see no reason the government should be allowed to cease assets with out even charging a persons with crime

I also see no reason why when those assets are seized the burden is upon me to prove my innocence

CF is an abomination of "Justice" is has no place in any Justice System, any defense of it is promoting unethical practices. Period, End of Discussion

Yes, and it also requires time.

> CF is an abomination of "Justice" is has no place in any Justice System, any defense of it is promoting unethical practices.

CF is used to seize intercepted illegal goods at the border, and items left at the scene of a crime where there is nobody around to charge. Is that promoting unethical practices? A grenade is left in a populated area, and the police are called and confiscate it. That's CF. Without it the police are stealing someone's property. Requiring the police to find and convict someone before seizing what is an dangerous or illegal item does not make sense. It needs to be accounted for in some manner, which is the heart of my argument. Revise CF, or abolish it and pass other laws as needed for the useful cases it supported. Abolishment without understanding or examination is irresponsible.

> Period, End of Discussion

Sure. If you know everything there is to know about a topic, and all possible current and future interpretations of it, then that makes sense. Since I don't believe that applies to any human being, I don't think that's a rational stance to take. Apparently you do.

Easy fix; hold/freeze the bank robber's funds (or the crack dealers house, or whatever other property) temporarily - if they're convicted, take it permanently. If they're not convicted (be that acquitted, charges dropped, charges never laid, whatever) they should get the property back. Anything else is ridiculous.

Really, I just think acting like there will be no negative consequences of abolishing it, or that the negative consequences will be easily outweighed by the positives, without bothering to actually bothering to look at the pros and cons is an unsupportable position.

Officer: "Pour out that beer immediately or I will arrest you"

Why confiscate the beer? Dump it out and return the bottles. The officer is just helping the kid to come into compliance with the law.